Timothy Prickett Morgan
-
IBM Holds i 6.1 Prices Steady, Slashes Application Server Fees
April 5, 2010 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreIt has been three and a half years since IBM started to dabble with user-based pricing on OS/400 V5R3 and almost three years to the day since Big Blue decided–and thank heavens–to institute modest licensing fees and user-based pricing for the i5/OS V5R4 operating system. With the launch of the Power7-based machines in February, that was the perfect time to make any changes to packaging and pricing for the i For Business platform.
The Power 750, 770, and 780 machines launched in February run i 6.1.1, and there was no mention of any pricing for the software stack in the
-
Implementing 128-Character Passphrases in i/OS
March 31, 2010 Hey, Joe
… Read moreTo satisfy regulatory requirements, we must change our i/OS password strategy so that the system accepts up to 128-character passphrases using any keyboard character, including spaces. We currently use 10-character passwords. How do I make this change?
–Len
It’s easy to activate passphrases on iSeries, System i, and Power i systems. For readers not familiar with the concept, a passphrase refers to a password scheme that allows for very long passwords with few restrictions on character content.
Setting up passphrase support on an i/OS or OS/400 partition requires you to change the following three system values.
1. Password level (QPWDLVL)
-
Global Temporary Tables and Host Variables
March 31, 2010 Ted Holt
… Read moreGlobal temporary tables are a marvelous, powerful feature of SQL, allowing SQL programmers to create temporary tables as needed in order to build complex queries. One problem you will encounter occurs when you want to use a host variable within a program to limit the amount of data loaded into the table. You may not use a host variable in a Declare Global Temporary Table command. Fortunately, this is an easy limitation to circumvent.
First, let’s look at an example of the problem. In the following code fragment, I attempt to create a global temporary table using data for one
-
Variable Procedure Calls in Free-Format RPG
March 31, 2010 Jon Paris
… Read moreNote: The code accompanying this article is available for download here.
In my previous tip, I detailed the prototyping technique required to enable program calls in free-format RPG to use a variable to control the target program. These days, most modern RPGers make extensive use of subprocedures, so can the same techniques be applied to procedure calls?
The simple answer is “yes,” but the technique is slightly more complex than that used for program calls. The reason for this is unlike program calls, procedure calls normally have to be resolved at program creation time, i.e., during the binding
-
Internet Explorer 8 Doesn’t Support HMC V7. . . or Does It?
March 24, 2010 Hey, Joe
… Read moreI wanted to pass this IBM email along about HMC V7 HMC compatibility with Internet Explorer 8 (IE), in case you hadn’t seen it. Evidently there are some problems trying to remotely access HMC V7 with IE 8.
–Terrence
If you’re running HMC V7 (including the new v7.7.1 software), IBM is currently passing around a note that clarifies Big Blue’s position on support for Internet Explorer 8 (IE) compatibility with Hardware Management Console (HMC) v7.x.x and higher. Here’s what IBM has to say about this issue and what you can try to do to fix it.
When IBM released
-
Using UNION for Data Analysis
March 24, 2010 Skip Marchesani
… Read moreTo do a quick review of my previous article, UNION is very useful when an SQL statement or query must operate on two or more tables and JOIN cannot be used to produce the desired result set table. For example, if you have multiple history tables–one for each specific time period (year, month, week, etc.), and their record formats are similar and compatible, a union is a good way to query and combine two or more of these tables to derive a single, final result set table using SQL.
Several months ago, a friend sent me the spreadsheet shown
-
Companies Say Software Support Is Satisfactory
March 22, 2010 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreIT shops surveyed by market researcher IDC tell the company that they are pretty pleased with the level of hand-holding they get from them for their enterprise software.
IDC yammered with more than 1,000 IT professionals worldwide to reckon how well or poorly their software providers did in giving them support when things went awry, as always happens with software, of course, and rarely with hardware. As is IDC’s wont, it makes reports out of survey results and then charges money for them after giving away a taste for free. You can get the support report, called IDC Customer Satisfaction
-
Note to IBM: Price Power 720s to Crush Xeon 5600 Systems
March 22, 2010 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreWhen IBM‘s entry Power 720 Power7-based servers–probably in two-socket and four-socket configurations and likely using four-core and six-core variants of the chips with lots of the L3 cache disabled if my hunch is right–come to market in maybe April or May of this year, they will be facing some pretty stiff X64 competition from systems that use the new “Westmere-EP” Xeon 5600s that Intel announced last week.
As expected, the Xeon 5600s come in four-core and six-core variants, and deliver roughly 40 to 50 percent more oomph than their quad-core predecessors, the “Nehalem-EP” Xeon 5500s that debuted last March
-
Systems Engineer: The Best Job In The US of A
March 22, 2010 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreRecessions always cause people to take stock of their lives and examine and then re-examine their career paths, and the economic meltdown of 2007-2009 is no exception. So what is the best, most safe job? According to the analysts at the Focus.com collective, that would be a systems engineer.
No kidding. Really. Check out the rankings yourself here if you don’t believe me.
To come to this conclusion, and to rank the best 35 jobs you might think about working toward in the next decade, Focus.com grabbed a big bale of statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor that diced
-
IBM Chops Prices on Racks, PDUs, and UPSes
March 22, 2010 Timothy Prickett Morgan
… Read moreIf you are looking to build out your data center, server room, or data closet and you are in need of new server racks, power distribution units, and uninterruptible power supplies, IBM has a deal for you.
In announcement letter 310-135, Big Blue announced that it is chopping prices on selected racks and rack options between March 17 and June 30, the end of the second quarter. The lowered prices are only available to customers who buy directly from IBM’s online store. IBM has cut the price of its S2 standard 42U rack by 25 percent, to $1,207, and